Julien Baker covers No Children by the Mountain Goats + an introduction from John Darnielle

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I’m a millennial who grew up in an incredibly Christian, conservative, white, upper middle class, environment with parents who’s idea of successfully building and realizing an identity, was seamless assimilation. My grandparents emigrated from Poland in a dangerous time and assimilation was survival, they changed their last name to a more American sounding name and the kids grew up thinking striving to be exactly like everyone else was ideal. Theres definitely some intergenerational trauma there that I’m never even going to try to unpack with them. Anyway, i grew up with almost zero representation of afab queerness in the media, and the only in person queerness I’d ever been around, was my butch step-cousin, who the family talked shit about behind their back. My understanding of attraction was basic comphet-style, basing my self confidence on male approval, and I thought everybody’s experience of “attraction” felt like the good feeling you get when somebody likes you (especially since I felt extremely misunderstood (lol wonder why) by everybody in my life, including myself. I was 24 and leaving an abusive marriage with a three year old child, when I started recognizing the intense feeling I had in response to some women in entertainment (especially gender nonconforming women (this was before the concept of being nb was even a thing)) was what attraction was supposed to feel like. I’d be like “I CANT STAND THAT GIRL!” But I’d not be able to stop thinking about them and I’d watch videos of them performing and eventually I was like “what is this feeling? Am I turned on right now? Better watch that video again to find out.” I held off on dating, flirting, cuddling, etc for two years because I wanted to work on myself and find healthy ways to develop self confidence so I didn’t rely on external validation.